


Firmly GRASP It (aka the dawnbreaker!darien au)

by lyssajanet



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Arkay Worship, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Slow Burn, talking weapon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21815257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyssajanet/pseuds/lyssajanet
Summary: A trainee Priestess of Arkay on a gap year and a talking sword that will not stop making flirty sword-based jokes - a significantly more angsty joke AU than I originally planned.Based on the idea that in the Summerset chapter, Darien sacrificing himself to purify Dawnbreaker meant that he Became Dawnbreaker, but maintained full sentience and awareness, as well as his original personality. Thus: dawnbreaker!darien the talking sword.Mostly chronological, lot of time jumps to focus only on important scenes, probably a lot of summarization, not a novelization of Skyrim.
Relationships: Darien Gautier/Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Darien Gautier/Original Breton Character(s), Darien Gautier/Original Female Breton Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	1. Ice and Salt

**Author's Note:**

> Wassup gang, I assume you're here for the Darien content. Well you're going to have to wait for that and suffer through reading about yet another one of my Bretons first. This fic is more for me to write down what's actually happening in this AU so I can talk and meme more freely on my blog without confusing other people. So I don't really have high expectations for it, but I hope you enjoy it if you decide to read it!  
> Also note that I am a non-religious person attempting to write a pretty religious character. I'd gladly take constructive criticism on that bit because I enjoy growing as a writer, but again, this fic is mostly for myself and helping establish the AU for my own personal purposes (memes).  
> Sorry about the title, no one gave me better ideas.

The sensation of ice and salt across one’s face was not unfamiliar to Rosalie Hadrach. Enough trips to Northpoint as a child to visit family and others in the priesthood forced a young child to get used to the feeling and eventually associate it with fond memories of childhood. Running along the freezing cold beaches to the north with the children of other Priests of Arkay, with tears in her eyes from the salty air and laughter of a child simply being a child, or those particularly cold mornings where the kids would swear that the moisture in their eyes was crystallizing. Even as adolescence came and Northpoint itself became more associated with the priesthood than of childhood, ice and salt never changed. As she watched Northpoint slip under the ocean horizon, and felt the sensation continue to sting her face, Rosalie thought to herself that it was rather symbolic.

High Rock was, and still would be, her home. Her family, her friends, her order – they would all still be there when she returned and promised to welcome her back with open arms as if nothing changed. It was perfectly normal to get cold feet before officially joining the Priesthood of Arkay but still want to join – eventually. They did not want her to make a decision she would come to regret; would much rather she take the requested ‘gap year’ to explore the world, see more of what was out there, meet new and diverse people, before settling down in some Hall of the Dead. It was even more expected of her to hesitate given her blood and the fact she had never left her homeland of High Rock. Of course the _Breton_ wants to go be an adventurer, they joked fondly.

And so the Hadrach’s and a few fellow members of the priesthood waved Rosalie off as her ship set sail for Solitude.

As the familiarity and unfamiliarity of ice and salt burning her face in a place other than Northpoint continued, Rosalie felt the anxiety set in. What if this was a mistake? What if she wasn’t cut out for being an adventurer? She was, after all, just a trainee Priestess of Arkay with only basic skills in combat. Her parents didn’t exactly plan on their only child ever having to fight off worse than a walking skeleton.

What if everyone back home was only faking their kindness toward her wanting to leave and was hoping she’d never return, or saw her hesitation as a sign of weakness and wanted her gone? What if they didn’t take her back, declaring that she had changed too much to be a truly loyal servant of Arkay?

What if she didn’t _want_ to go back? What if she found something out there that called to her more than Arkay? Would her parents be disappointed in her? Disown her? What if she went back to the priesthood regardless and spent every day missing that _something_?

There was so much that could go wrong and only one ‘right’ ending: she explored the world, had many pleasant and enlightening experiences that did not disappoint Arkay, and came back home with enough of the world seen that she would not go stir crazy in whatever Hall of the Dead she ended up assigned to with only corpses for company.

With her homeland getting further and further away, all Rosalie wanted was the comforting embrace of her mother and the reassuring words she always had. She always knew what to say. What would she say now? Probably something about not worrying about things that have yet to come and that cannot be changed. She would hold her daughter in her arms and rub her back, softly speaking and bringing her back to the present. There’s no point in worrying over concerns you created in your own mind, she would probably say. And if you ever reach those bridges, you’ll cross them then.

Rosalie took a deep breath in through her nose, feeling the burn of ice and salt seep into her soul, and went below deck for the evening. She’d feel better in the morning.


	2. High Gate Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosalie and Marcurio take down a dragon priest

The last few weeks had been both enjoyable and profitable. Upon docking in Solitude, Rosalie had decided that she would be taking the next year of her life to not only explore and enjoy all that life had to offer, but to do the work of Arkay at the same time. Purging Skyrim of its undead and assisting the Priesthood of Arkay whenever she could. Her hesitance with officially joining the priesthood wasn’t because of any issue she took with Arkay – by the Light, no! She still wanted to serve her god in whatever way she should, and Skyrim had no shortage of undead. She just… wasn’t ready to commit yet.

Her first order of business was to familiarize herself with Solitude. As the closest city to High Rock, it would be where her parents would send letters and supplies to. Having a sort of home base would help as well. Within two days, she had enough leads on places to explore to keep her satisfied for a week. Stop some necromancers here, quiet the undead there, and fulfil a few requests for the people of Solitude while she was out and about for extra gold.

Assisting Falk Firebeard with the Potema issue was her first big break financially, and made her feel like she was finally on the right track. The idea of being an adventurer felt a lot less intimidating after that. Thus began her explorations outside Haafingar and meeting Marcurio. He found her rejection of Brynjolf in the tavern to be amusing enough to lessen his follower fee to half, and so the two took Skyrim’s undead by storm. Luckily for Rosalie, he knew the land far better than she did, and knew plenty of places crawling with undead, or at least knew people who could give them leads.

Which was how the mage-spellsword duo ended up in High Gate Ruins with a promise to help Anska retrieve a scroll. The promise of loot and chance to kill some undead was convincing enough to keep her mouth shut about Ysgramor. She’d learned that lesson early on after her first encounter with the Companions in Whiterun, but Marcurio still grabbed her arm after Anska said that name. Whether it was to remind her to shut up, or a comfort at the frustration he already knew she felt, it didn’t matter. Stabbing a few draugr was cathartic enough on a personal level, not that she’d ever admit she did it for any reason other than for ‘the glory of Arkay’.

Maybe she should talk to someone about that.

The trio arrived into a large chamber with levers and stones with images of animals. These puzzles confused Rosalie the first time she encountered one, but the answer always seemed to be plainly visible in some part of the room. Once again, her suspicion was proven right and she looked up above the entrance from the bottom of the stairs and saw the pattern.

“Marcurio, go upstairs and pull the lever for the eagle, then the whale,” she said, pointing to the upstairs area. “I’ll pull the last two after you.”

“Aye aye, captain,” he answered with a two-finger salute before making for the stairs.

She waited for the sound of one lever being pulled, then the second, before pulling her own two. “You know, these puzzles don’t seem to be doing a very good job of keeping people out,” she thought aloud.

“Maybe it’s not to keep people out,” Marcurio said from above, “but to keep something else inside.”

* * *

The main emotion Rosalie felt when dealing with undead was fear. A controllable fear, yes but all it would take for her to never return home was one well-placed hit with their weapon of choice, or a well-aimed shot of ice through her fleshy bits. Sometimes sadness, as many of the undead did not wish for that fate or were simply lost souls forced into a husk, doomed to wander catacombs and ruins until some adventurer put them out of their misery. Disappointment for those that she knew had a choice, and chose wrong. Anger was reserved for the undead and necromancers who hurt others. And satisfaction was the unifying emotion felt as she stood over the officially dead (as in not going to be risen again) undead.

One might consider terror to fall under fear, but the emotion that Rosalie felt as she watched Vokun rise from his tomb was nothing like the fear she had felt before. Distantly she had worried if she was giving Marcurio bruises on his forearm from where she death-gripped it, but they both had greater things to worry about.

After a few moments of letting the panic course through her, she took a deep breath and reminded herself that Arkay was watching over her. He would protect her and make sure she came out of this alive. He always did, and always would. It would be an insult to Arkay if she doubted him for even a second. With a look back at Marcurio and Anska and a nod of affirmation, she slowly moved closer to the dragon priest.

He didn’t go down easily, and if Rosalie wasn’t so well practiced with her timely restoration magic, she might not have been around to receive Anska’s reward for the scroll. The room it was contained in had another one of those weird concave stone walls with strange text on it infused with magic. They always seemed to blindside her, but even as her vision cleared, she still couldn’t understand exactly what they said.

A mystery for another day – they had looting to do anyway.

As she began pulling stuff out of one of the chests in the room and handing it to Marcurio to decide how to split the spoils, she wondered why there always seemed to be a particularly good treasure chest near the end of the ruins. More gold, weapons with rare enchantments, a rare book or two… Perhaps this was Vokun’s own chest back in the dragon war.

There was an orb of some sort on top of a rather large and clearly enchanted axe. She reached to set the orb aside an-

“A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON.”


	3. A New Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beacon time

Rosalie and Marcurio continued their adventuring for barely a week before the incessant nagging of the orb became too much.

Marcurio had convince Rosalie that the orb was nothing to worry about; probably some leftover curse or enchantment from the Merethic Era since there was no way anyone had been inside that tomb since then. Whoever needed that temple cleared out was long gone as well as the darkness itself. It alleviated some of Rosalie’s concerns. The other one – that she was losing her mind and hearing voices – would be fixed with a quick visit to the Temple of the Divines in Solitude and a nice long session with Arkay.

That reassurance went away after two days when Rosalie was awoken in the dead of night. “TAKE MY BEACON TO THE MOUNT ABOVE KILKREATH.” It startled Rosalie so badly, she could not fall back asleep. She prayed again to Arkay to clear her mind of whatever plagued her, and desperately hoped that was the last time she would hear the voice.

Not half a day later, “THE DEFILER WAXES.” The voice startled her right as she meant to give the decisive blow in another battle again Skyrim’s undead and gave the killing blow to Marcurio instead. She didn’t have the time to tell him the voice from the orb spoke again, as the next wave of draugr were already approaching.

Again, it spoke. While attempting to relax in Dawnstar’s tavern after a hard-won fight, the voice chose to speak right when Rosalie was taking a drink and resulted in her spilling wine all over her robes. “CAN YOU NOT HEAR ME? ARE YOUR EARS FILLED WITH HATE?” The innkeeper was kind enough to offer to clean them, but Rosalie’s anxieties did not rest in upsetting him; they rested in the fact that the voice sounded as if it were getting more upset at her.

It continued.

“FOOL! HE IS PERVERTING MY LIGHT.”

“A LIGHT THAT COULD ILLUMINATE SKYRIM AND HER PEOPLE.”

“DO YOU PREFER HEEDLESSNESS TO _MY_ LUMINOUS GLORY? GO!”

No longer could she ignore the seriousness of the situation or the fear that had taken root in her stomach nonstop for the last week. In the morning, she told Marcurio that the voice from the orb hadn’t actually stopped, and that they were to make for Dragonbridge immediately.

* * *

The light of dawn hadn’t even cracked its way into the windows of the Four Shields Tavern when Rosalie awoke. For once, the orb hadn’t disturbed her rest. Perhaps it knew she was near, or of her plans.

After dressing and packing up her bag, she peeked into Marcurio’s room to see if he was awake. She decided to let him rest a bit longer and be awoken by the slowly arising patrons and owners of the tavern.

Dragonbridge was small. The kind of town one passes through and only lives in because they work the mill or own the tavern. It was a place to stop on the way to Solitude. It also housed the operations base of the Penitus Oculatus, but they were relatively new to the area and rarely interacted with the people of Dragonbridge, or so Rosalie had been told by the innkeeper. All they did was remind Rosalie of the dying Empire her homeland still considered itself a part of. She kept that part to herself.

The weight and shape of the orb in her pack was not forgettable, not something she could slowly grow accustomed to as she went about her journey. Especially considering what she was about to do. Her mind went back to the moment she first encountered it.

* * *

“By the Light!” Rosalie yelled, hot potato-ing the orb until she fell backwards onto the floor in her attempts to not drop it, lest it shatter. She didn’t know why she still held onto it, but continued.

“LISTEN! HEAR ME AND OBEY,” the vaguely female but disturbing voice continued.

Marcurio dropped the gauntlets he was investigating at her shout and rushed over. “Rosalie! Are you okay?” he asked with panic in his voice, crouched down next to her and frantically checking over her body for signs of injury.

She opened her mouth to speak but the voice interrupted her. “A FOUL DARKNESS HAS SEEPED INTO MY TEMPLE. A DARKNESS THAT YOU WILL DESTROY.”

“What, no!” Rosalie ignored Marcurio’s question. “I’m not going to your temple!” she shouted incredulously, still shaken from the shock of the orb talking.

His eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “What temple? Did you hit your head during that fight?”

“Didn’t you hear it?” she asked.

“Hear what?”

She gestured with the orb. “It’s – _talking_. Or something!”

“Rosalie,” he said after a pause, “I’m not hearing anything.” Rosalie felt her stomach drop. She waited for the punchline, for Marcurio to pull a _gotcha_ and stop pretending so she could punch him in the arm to take things seriously. But he didn’t.

All he did was attempt to hold her eye contact. She broke away, trying not to panic about the talking orb that demanded she destroy some foul darkness, and pitifully hoping her mind had simply snapped. That she was just hearing voices.

But the voice continued.

“RETURN MY BEACON TO MOUNT KILKREATH.”

Except now it truly wasn’t coming from the orb.

“AND I WILL MAKE YOU THE INSTRUMENT OF MY CLEANSING LIGHT."

It was now inside her head.

* * *

Eventually Marcurio woke up and joined her, half loaf of bread in hand and a complaint about the early hour on his lips. Rosalie smiled, accepting the attempt at lightening the mood.

Just as they were about to take the first step up the hill, the voice spoke, booming inside Rosalie’s head. “ONLY ONE MAY BECOME MY CHAMPION.” Her entire body flinched, and Marcurio stopped in his tracks – well aware what that meant even if he couldn’t hear the voice. “YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN FOR A REASON. YOU MUST CONTINUE ALONE. THE OTHER STAYS.”

“What did it say?” Marcurio asked, placing a hand on her shoulder and rubbing his thumb over the fabric of her robes.

Rosalie looked down and off to the side. “It says you have to stay, that I have to do this alone.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. But I’m not about to challenge the talking orb when it tells me what to do.”

“Rosalie you could die!” He held her other shoulder and made her face him. “Do you actually think you’re capable of handling whatever is in there by yourself? You have no idea what could be in there.”

She shrugged his hand off her and frowned. “Marc I already know how incapable I am, you don’t have to remind me. But I’m not about to risk someone else getting smote just because I disobeyed the orders of some powerful being that talks to me through a weird orb! I won’t be responsible for that.” Turning away from him, she made her ultimatum. “Either you stay, or I don’t go.”

“Are you going to give it to me?” She shook her head. Silence, apart from the town of Dragonbridge slowly awakening. “I’m not going to fight you for it, you know that.”

“So are you going to let me go?”

“You’re not exactly giving me a choice.”

“I know.”

* * *

Rosalie had seen the wingtips of the statue at Mt. Kilkreath when she left the city of Solitude for the second time. They peaked over the tops of the trees, tempting you to investigate and making you wonder who built this and what was it. Its location between the southern road that connected Solitude with the rest of Skyrim, and the northern one infested with Thalmor, made it a tempting shortcut for those wishing to avoid the embassy. But a shortcut used, it was not. While the wingtips planted questions in your mind, they also dropped a feeling into your stomach that told you to walk faster and keep moving.

Her gait slowed as she trekked up the unmaintained stairs cut into the earth. She thought about her mother, her father, the priests of Arkay. She thought about the comforting silence of Halls of the Dead, the soothing and repetitive motions of last rites. She thought about the icy salty sting of Northpoint sea air and wished her eyes were burning and skin covered in goose bumps.

The statue, finally seen from the front, was even more imposing than from the road. From the road, all she felt was something unnerving and the desire to leave. From here, with the orb in her pack and anxiety of what was to come, and knowledge that she could not back out, she trudged on with a quiver in her step. Another one of those concave stone walls caught her eye before the voice spoke again. "LOOK AT MY TEMPLE, LYING IN RUINS. SO MUCH FOR THE CONSTANCY OF MORTALS, THEIR CRAFTS AND THEIR HEARTS. IF THEY LOVE ME NOT, HOW CAN MY LOVE REACH THEM?” Love was not what Rosalie felt in that moment. “RESTORE TO ME MY BEACON, THAT I MIGHT GUIDE YOU TOWARD YOUR DESTINY."

Rosalie wasn’t entirely sure she believed in destiny. She would like to believe that every choice she made, while shaped by her past, was always an action that _she_ made, knowingly, willingly, and of her own free will. But how can one truly know if their decisions were destined or not? Surely not through any _mortal_ means, and the idea of even attempting to learn the truth behind whether free will was real or not was not something Rosalie wanted to undertake. Regardless of what she felt about destiny, what she did know was that she did not want her destiny to be intertwined with this… being.

The wall would have to wait. She tried not to think about how the wall would not matter if she died. Or worse.

From her pack she removed the orb. Beacon, the voice called it. It was lighter than it looked, of a solid and smooth stone like substance. Her fingertips curled into the dimples and rubbed over them, scraping skin and grounding her with the pain. She stared up at the statue and felt the immensity of her own insignificance under its towering form. She couldn’t tell who or what it was of, and wondered if she would learn, or if she would die first. With a slow, deep, and shaky breath, she apologized to her parents in her mind for what she was about to do, and placed the beacon on the pedestal at the statues feet.

Light. Bright, blinding. The beacon rose above her, above the statue, so that it appeared to hold the beacon above it in its hands. Then she arose, higher than the beacon, higher and higher and higher until she could see all of Skyrim. From here, she could see the Nordic ruin she and Marcurio had debated clearing out weeks ago before deciding it was too risky. To the east, Solitude was slowly awakening as Magnus rose into the sky but had yet to creep through the windows of Morthal, Whiterun, Falkreath. Beyond that, the tallest mountain in Skyrim, the Throat of the World, Rosalie believed it was called. She could even see White-Gold, towering at the edge of her field of vision. Never had she thought she would see the tower in person, and certainly not while being held in the air by a powerful being who could drop and kill her at any moment.

What had she gotten herself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi im not dead, just lacked motivation to write after making a different ldb right after rosalie so i could play the legacy of the dragonborn update. then got more invested in eso and bla bla bla anywhere hope u enjoyed my nonsense  
> also fun fact, all of the meridia dialogue from when she's nagging is from the base game! well, the base game before it was patched out, but i managed to track down and listen to each of the lines to get the Vibe of them so i could place them properly.


	4. Meridia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> meridia time time for meridia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd rather just get this posted now since i haven't had the motivation to write what comes after lol

As she hovered high above Skyrim with nothing between herself and the ground, Rosalie started to think about the decisions that led her to that moment. But that was interrupted by a sphere of light appearing in front of her. Heart pounding, frozen in fear that any movement would break the spell and send her straight to the stone altar and to her death, she waited in silence for it to do… something. It moved, adjusting itself. Then it seemed to look at her, and Rosalie felt her stomach clench in a unique kind of fear.

“It is time for my splendor to return to Skyrim.” It was the voice from the orb, but it spoke softer, personal. As if it was finally speaking _to_ her and not _at_ her. But its tone could not distract from the petrifying fear of its words. Rosalie tried to steel herself enough to hear the light’s words over the roaring of blood in her ears. “But the token of my truth lies buried in the ruins of my once great temple, now tainted by a _profane_ darkness skittering within. The necromancer, Malkoran, defiles my shrine with vile corruptions, trapping lost souls left in the wake of this war to do his bidding.”

A necromancer? Necromancers were worse than the undead themselves. The undead were often victims of some living being’s madness for power, but there was no such thing as a good necromancer. All of them defiled the dead and tormented souls into a wrongful existence. Under normal circumstances, Rosalie would gladly enter the temple and end the foul necromancer. However, the fact it was some clearly powerful and godly being telling her to do so – that made her uneasy. A mutual enemy. Perhaps that would be enough to calm Rosalie’s fear addled mind, she tried to tell herself.

The light spoke again. “Worse still, he uses the power stored within my own token to fuel his foul deeds. I have brought you here, mortal, to be _my_ champion. You will enter my temple, retrieve my artifact, and destroy the defiler. Guide my light through the temple to open the inner sanctum and destroy the defiler."

Rosalie’s mind went blank. She did not know how to respond. What exactly was one supposed to say when they were told by a talking ball of light to kill a necromancer and retrieve some artifact?

Artifact.

Artifact.

“T-Tell me more about this artifact.” Rosalie cursed her stutter.

It answered, “Mortals call it Dawnbreaker, for it was forged in a holy light that breaks upon my foes, burning away corruption and false life. You will enter my shrine, destroy Malkoran, and retrieve this mighty blade."

Dawnbreaker. The statue. Undead foes. Light. She realized this wasn’t just some powerful being, or even something connected to Arkay.

This. This was a Daedric Prince.

Oh no, she thought.

“You’re Meridia, then,” Rosalie stated.

“How perceptive you are, mortal.” Meridia did not sound amused.

How? How could she get wound up in Daedric nonsense? She was a good follower of the Aedra, who just wanted to serve her god and see more of the world. And in less than two months, managed to catch the attention of an actual Daedric Prince, wishing to name her as their champion. If she had eaten anything for breakfast, she would have been sick.

Rosalie wondered if Meridia even knew she served Arkay. Maybe she would be so repulsed by a loyal servant of a Divine, that she would let Rosalie go. “You-you are aware I serve one of the Aedra, right?” It was only after speaking that she realized Meridia might respond by simply smiting her and braced herself.

Luckily, or unluckily perhaps, she did not do the latter. “Ah, yes, your precious Arkay. All that tells me is that we share a common goal, do we not? Do you think I chose you to be my champion because you were the first to find my beacon? Your crusade against Skyrim’s foul undead has not gone unnoticed.” Meridia sounded almost… pleased. Or was it proud? No, certainly not proud. Not for Rosalie. “I care little for your previous loyalties. You will serve me, if not out of loyalty, then out of our… mutual foe.” Rosalie puffed up slightly at the insinuation that Arkay was a previous loyalty, but reined herself right away, remembering she was still being held a lethal distance from the ground by a Daedric Prince.

Instead, she looked out at the land and saw Magnus’ light had spread its way to Morthal and was slowly crawling up the mountains. She considered Meridia’s words. Rosalie wanted the necromancer to cease his activities and face punishment for his crimes. Unfortunately, there were rarely options for dealing with necromancers short of a sword through the chest, as they tended not to respond well to threats of imprisonment. Even if Rosalie did not want the necromancer dealt with, Meridia did not make it sound as if leaving was an option; simply that she could either kill him in Arkay’s name or hers. In the end, it would please both.

Was it even possible to serve Arkay and not, in the process, serve Meridia? “I don’t think I have much of a choice here.”

Meridia did not respond.

Rosalie took in a shaky breath, and sighed in defeat. Looking down, her stomach did not even drop as she was reminded of just how far it was to the ground.

“I'll do it.”

If a ball of light could smile with all its nonexistent teeth, then that was what it did. “Of course you will. _I_ have commanded it!” Meridia shouted. “Go now, the artifact must be reclaimed and Malkoran destroyed."

And then she fell.


	5. Dawnbreaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time to fight malkoran

Malkoran stood with his back to the archway, surrounded by more of the shades that Rosalie has encountered throughout Meridia’s temple. One or two of those shades, Rosalie had learned she was able to handle on her own. Three she had struggled with. But there were at least five in there, probably more hiding just outside her line of sight from the archway, as well as her actual target: the necromancer. His black robes, the skull atop his staff, the bodies littering the room, there was no moral dilemma about whether or not the necromancer should die. He should, she told herself. He had to. _She_ had to.

The muffle spell was about to end, so Rosalie refreshed it – as well as replacing her invisibility spell with a chameleon spell – while she collected her thoughts and attempted to formulate a plan. A silently casted conjuration on one end of the room and a fireball to one of the shades while they all had their back turned toward the summoned daedra. Get the shades down fast and let the necromancer waste his magic on attacking shadows. Once they could take down the remaining shades and necromancer in fair combat, they would charge the room. From there, the plan was fuzzy. Dependent on too many factors Rosalie couldn’t predict. She would take him in melee combat, using enough protective spells to keep herself save, while he would continue with his ranged attacks against Malkoran. Probably more fireballs. If she could throw out a flame atronach during all that, the fight would be all that easier.

She looked up to begin communicating with Marcurio using their rudimentary signs language, developed between just them in the few weeks they had been traveling together, only to remember that he was not with her. She was alone in this temple, with only her sword and spells and the blessing of Arkay. She tried not to think about whether or not Meridia was protecting her as well. Or perhaps it would be reassuring to know that the being who sent her here to do this task would not let her simply die. How to feel, how to feel…

She was scared – that she knew, but the specificities of what was filling her with fear, or the kind of fear she was filled with – that she did not know.

She was alone – that she knew as well, but she would not be alone for long. Any moment now, she would be with Malkoran, and after that, either Marcurio eventually or Arkay forever. Who she would be with – that she did not know either.

For now though, she was completely, terribly, and painfully

alone.

With a deep and shaky breath, she squeezed her eyes shut and blindly cast the flame atronach spell behind her into the room followed by invisibility. As she listened to the chaos ensue, Rosalie realized just how much invisibility drained her magicka, and why her instructors always focused on chameleon spells over total invisibility. She kept magicka potions in her pack, but she preferred to have them available near the end of the battle rather than the start. Just as she popped the cap off the bottle, the flame atronach sputtered out and exploded, and she cursed herself in her mind. Not aloud, gods no. Though she considered that perhaps possible imminent death was a permissible time to swear. The necromancer might hear her however, so she kept it to herself as she casted another atronach with nearly all the magicka the potion gave back to her.

Wait. Sputter out. Explode. Pray none of the shades or the necromancer would leave the room and spot her. Cast. Repeat.

She peaked into the room from behind the corner and counted the shades every now and then, terrified that at any moment, one of them would notice her and turn their attention toward her. Stealthy, she was not. But as the pattern continued, her luck managed to hold out until only the necromancer and one shade remained. Praise be to Arkay, she thought.

Feeling empowered with just a hint of foolish bravado, she turned the corner, sword out, and charged at the necromancer.

* * *

When the battle was done, the necromancer and his shade laid on opposite ends of the room. Rosalie herself laid on the floor as well, fighting to stay conscious as her gut cramped with magical exhaustion. The ceiling spun and the headrush fuzzies grew and grew and grew until they entirely consumed her vision. Blind to her surroundings, she tried not to think about how she may have missed a shade in the temple, and how it could come for her in her moment of vulnerability.

No sight, the sound of blood roaring in her ears, all she could do was smell the rot of decay from the desecrated corpses and feel the pins and needles of lingering restoration magic in her hands. As unpleasant as _that_ was, Rosalie knew that once the adrenaline faded away, the real pain would set in. She knew there were no injuries on her body – her restoration knowledge made sure of that – but that would not stop that phantom pain of those injuries healed away in the heat of the moment from tormenting her. Her body may be healed, but her mind couldn’t understand the source of the pain was gone. The fabric of her robes between her teeth, Rosalie clenched down and let the pain of the memories flow out unimpeded, alongside her screaming groans and face-staining tears. It would pass, she knew that, but it did not make suffering through it any easier. It was never easy.

Restoration did not replace preventative alteration spells.

Once the pain was halfway through fading away, her mind finally catching up to the status of her body, “ _It is done. The defiler is defeated. Take Dawnbreaker from its pedestal_."

Rosalie listened for Meridia’s voice to continue, but the only sound that filled the chamber was the sound of her own ragged breathing. There’s was a slight wave of fear at what might happen if she kept Meridia waiting, but the magical exhaustion kept her from sitting up from the floor for another minute. Her face was still sore from letting out her sobs of pain and biting down on her sleeve. Rosalie lifted the sleeve above her face to examine it for punctures. None, luckily. Mending clothing was something she knew how to do in theory, but less so in practice. Especially in Skyrim. 

With her mind finally able to focus on something other than the pain of phantom fatal injuries, it finally set in for Rosalie that she had defeated the necromancer. An extremely powerful necromancer. On her own. And very well nearly died from it. There were a few moments in the fight where Malkoran hit her with a spell that Rosalie knew should have killed her, but nothing happened. Or where she thought she was out of magicka, but when she called upon it to summon another atronach, there it was. Arkay had truly been looking out for her today, she knew it. But she refrained from sending her thanks to him while inside the temple of a Daedric prince. Better not to risk a smiting while still under her gaze.

Sitting up once she acquired the strength to do so (and one the anxiety about making Meridia wait became too much), Rosalie caught sight of Dawnbreaker. Still catching her breath from the effort for getting her upper body off the floor, she took it in. The beam of light Rosalie had been guiding through the temple ended at the pedestal Dawnbreaker sat in. The sculped hands on the pedestal seems to hold it reverently, cradling it by the bright circle of light at the guard of the sword. Most of it seemed to be within the pedestal, only the grip, guard, and pommel visible.

Using her own steel sword to steady herself as she stood up, Rosalie approached the pedestal. The light emanating from the sword felt even brighter, triggering another dizzy spell in the still magically exhausted Breton. This wasn’t natural. But the fact it was _light_ made the sword feel as if it wasn’t Daedric. After all, daedra were dark and evil beings who wished to ruin the lives of mortals for their own entertainment.

But Meridia hadn’t done that. Sure, she had all but threatened Rosalie with death to do her bidding, but it was for a good cause in the end. She did not torment Rosalie, nor did she make her do something she would not have done at all without coercion. It all felt weird. Rosalie didn’t want to think about it anymore.

She reached out for the sword, hesitating for a moment when she wondered what would happen when she touched it. Would the artifact burn? Possess her? Kill her? No, surely Meridia wouldn’t harm someone who had done her bidding to the letter. And it wasn’t as if she had any other option at this point. Rosalie gripped her hand on the sword and pulled it up and out of the pe-

“Well hello there!” exclaimed a voice coming from the sword.

“AHHHHHH!” and then she was falling, backward, into blinding white light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on tumblr @ partyatsanguines for more crying about darien and memes about rosalie/other ocs


End file.
